Russia-Ukraine war: Zaporizhzhia plant a

Sweden has said it would provide liquidity guarantees to Nordic and Baltic energy companies worth “billions of dollars” in an effort to prevent a financial crisis sparked by Europe’s energy crunch,

• The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been disconnected from its last remaining main power line to the grid and is now relying on a reserve line, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement. Previously, there had been reports that it had been knocked offline in the early hours of Saturday amid sustained shelling that destroyed a key power line, according to local Russian-backed authorities.

  • The Russian energy major Gazprom has said Siemens Energy is ready to help repair broken equipment for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline but claimed there was nowhere available for them to carry out the work.

    • The EU expects Russia to respect existing energy contracts but is prepared to meet the challenge if it fails to do so, the economic commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, said.

      • Gazprom’s announcement that the Nord Stream pipeline 1 would not restart came after G7 finance ministers said that they plan to implement a price cap on Russian oil to reduce “Russia’s ability to fund its war of aggression”.

      • Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has told Vladimir Putin that his country can play a facilitator role regarding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, according to his office.

        • An eight-year-old child has died after Russian shelling in the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv this morning, according to the head of the regional council, Hanna Zamazeyeva. Two other children were among those injured in Russian shelling in the city of Mykolaiv and Bereznehuvate, she said in an update on Telegram.

        • Russian troops launched overnight rocket attacks on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, according to the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko.

        • Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, has reportedly said he plans to take an “indefinite and long” break from his post. In a video posted to his Telegram, Kadyrov, 45, reportedly said he believed the “time has come” for him to leave.

          • The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has accused the west of playing a “chess game with death” in its support of Ukraine and accused western countries of trying to take advantage of the conflict to push Russia to “a new round of disintegration”.

          • Ukrainian forces have “likely achieved a degree of tactical surprise” with the ongoing counter-offensive, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. In its daily intelligence briefing, it said it had done so by taking advantage of “poor logistics, administration and leadership” in Russia’s military.

          • Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has said in a BBC interview that while the economic impact of the war in Ukraine is tough on its allies, Britons “count pennies” while Ukrainians “count casualties”.